The Portland daily press., 1887-07-28
TRAMP GIRLS.
Merry Party's Outing Proposed
School for Physical Training Of
CfrIc
IN. Y. Mail and Express.l

In 4. MAIL ana ENpreSS.J
A novel vacation party left the city the
other morning. 1t comprised a half-dozen
members, an artist whose name is not I'M
known with his wife heading the group, and
accompanied by quartette of girls in their
early twenties, two Of them being pupils of
the Art Students League. The six are en-
route for the Catskills, but they will not see
the sun rise from the plateau in front of the
Mountain House tomorrow morning They
purpose to be anywhere from week to a
month on the road. In word, they are 60
ing to walk.
A tramp trip through some of the most
beautiful-though it may not arrogate to it
self the title grandest-scenery in the East is
what the party, largely feminine, has in
mind. Taking boats from New York to New
Brunswick, the pedestrians will take look
at the Orange and Ramapo hills, swinging
round to the Delaware Water Gap and work
ing their way by easy stages north through
the Observation-Disclosures worth knowing if
less known than the rest of the Catskills-
and so on, to whatever final destination fan
cy may direct them, walking in the cool of
the morning and in the late afternoon, sleep
ing in farm houses or in an occasional barn
if the hay mows happen to be piled soft and
high and the watch dog be not too attentive
Baggage has been limited to small, light
over the shoulders Of each, and the object of
the Jaunt Is the enjoyment pure and simple
OF lapse into Bohemianism. The women
of the party, 1.-THE gallant five, as the home
stayers dub them, have adopted as accoutre-
ments for the tramp skirts of brown serge,
undrana1 liOlf n0ccihlQ and short in or
reaching to the tops of high walking boots
made for the occasion; blouse waists with
scarlet sashes for picturesque affect, brown
sailor hats with scarlet ribbons, oil of~pen-
nyr0yal for mosquito bites, and D1anty of
pluck to last them the journey Through. AL
penstocks are dispensed With and parasols
left at home, the old-tiLne heat remedy of a
handful OF broad r>wet leaves in the hat being
reIled on Ior duty in time of need.
oucn = lriPafoot is not a usual vacation
outing I9<~a woman, but il the project now
~ contcmplation for a college Of physical
training for girls in New York goes through,
it may in the future be as much matter of
course as 1t has been in the past out Of the
course. The proposed school, the plan Of
which exists in the minds Of some of the best
known promoters of physical training in the
country, will be, II opened, unique in design
and scope. A desirable uptown West side
corner has been spotted" so to speak. mon
ey is expected from one or two New York s
rich women who have the prospects Of girls
at heart, and 1t would not be surprising II
building were commenced within brief pc
Rod. Though nothing is definitely conclud-
ed, the outlook is favorable.
SO far as any plans have been precisely
formulated, the design Of the new school will
be to dispel the popular notion that the i'll
health of women is natural-that they are
the victims OF functions whose exercise nee
eSsarily constitutes sort OF inv alidism.
The girls entering will be treated according
to Dio Lewis's old theory that the micr0scop-
ic misses who swar:1 about our schools and
chatter in our.streets are the curiosities of a
high ciy,,.lation," and that women who
give = &c play to their lungs and atomachs
ought to grow nearly as large as men.
All pupils in this school of the future,
which may be school of the present within
a year, will be subjected to a daily regimen
with carefully appor9ioned exercise, with a
view Of determining the possibility of i'm
proving their bodies as the bodies of young
men are improved in the German gymnasia.
A full curriculum Of studies, probably Of the
academic or college preparatory grade, will
be, IT is thought adopted covering four
years time. Some restrictions as to dress it
is proposed to adopt, not amounting to uni
form, but making short, loose, light attire,
with no pressure whatever about the waist,
and hygienic shoes compulsory. leaving the
girls all day long as much at liberty as boys
in their gymnasium dress. Pupils will be
measured on entering, and an average gain
of two and halt inches about the chest, five
inches about the waist, one and half inches
about the arm and an inch about the forearm
is what is looked forward to as the desirable
result of the first years bodily training and
exercise of the typical slim girl of H.
That such a school would succeed Dio
Lewis's experiments at Lexington years ago
demonstrated. Whether the plan, as at
present entertained, becomes anything more
than plan or not, there is no reason why
the average woman shold not add ten fold to
her enjoyment of life and out-of-do0r living
by cultivating the noble art of walking. A
delicate woman, properly dressed, and who
knows how TO walk, can walk twenty-five
miles Of a summer afternoon without injury
when an equivalent amount of other exercise
might produce serious injury. Walking Is
no woman who sets rightly about 1t. A wom-
an who is unaccustomed to vigorous walk
ing, in order to become good pedestrian,
should look first to her shoes These should
be broad across the toward part of the foot,
offering not the least obstruction to the free
low and broad, and they should fit rather
snugly about the heel and instep. The full
dress equipment should weigh upon honest
scales not more than two and half or three
pounds, and should hang from the shoulders
without any band, pinned or buttoned or
laced about the1waist No woman can walk
In corset. The walker must be comforta-
BILE enough to be unconscious of her attire.
A hat that shades the eyes is in order.
So prepared, try any distance that does
not prove fatiguing as an init al experiment.
1t will probably be from mile and half to
two miles and must be walked at a brisk
pace, three miles and half an hour being a
good limit. When this can be done without
ache or foot WEAKNESS, and well woman
ought to have no difficulty at the first trial,
increase the distance during the leisure days
of the summer vacation daily, maintaining
the same gait, and fifteen miles day for a
week or fortnight in succession, twenty-five
miles on any occasion that demands it, will
be found within any ordinary capacity with
a month or six weeks training.
Women will never make the time of pedes-
TRANS of the other sex. There is no need of
their doing it, though Bertha Won Hillern,
believe, can maintain pace of six miles an
hour. But three miles and a half as stand
ard, with four now and then, is not only
what every woman can If she tries. but what
she ought, as fully. developed human being,
to be able to maintain for several hours at a
stretch Then tramp trips would be not on